Click here to support the Daily Grail for as little as $US1 per month on Patreon

Skeptical Foolery

Skeptoid host Brian Dunning has written on SkepticBlog about a recent surreal experience he had with Michael Shermer, when both were invited to be the skeptics on a new show supposedly about testing psychics for a $50,000 prize.

The third psychic was, unfortunately, not a psychic at all, but a young comedian who used to have a show on the BBC, and now appears to be trying to make a name for himself with a new character who is a wannabe nemesis of skeptics. He’s going to find this an uphill battle, as he’s neither clever, funny, particularly talented in any apparent way, nor does he seem to know much about psychics or criticism of psychics.

He goes by the moniker “Shirley”, and looks like a televangelist in a gaudy white suit with colored piping, and either the world’s worst hair or a gauche orange wig, I couldn’t quite tell which. When it was his turn to come out, Shirley came up to me, took his seat, refused to return my friendly greeting, and launched into what he seemed to think was a clever attempt to “get into my head” – insulting my parents, my wife, and “revealing” to all my terrible guilt at how I’ve treated people. Essentially, his routine was to ignore the reason [that I believed] he was supposed to be there, and try to establish himself as – well, I can’t even think what. He refused to participate in the arranged tests, instead throwing tantrums about each, constantly demanding that he be paid his $50,000.

Michael Shermer tweeted some of the later developments during the day, including this medium dragging a bodybag onto the set, claiming it to contain the body of Lee Majors.

Seems that Shermer and Dunning were lured into being (unaware) participants in the taping of a new Shirley Ghostman feature. Ghostman is the creation of Marc Wootton, a British comedian/actor doing Sacha Baron Cohen Borat-like joke interviews and interactions, with the Ghostman character being a send-up of star mediums. Wootton did something similar with British skeptics a while back – here’s a segment featuring UK skeptic Chris French:

Personally I don’t get much enjoyment out of the Ghostman prank interviews (and I think Chris French came out of the above interaction looking very good). I’m not a huge fan of Dunning or Shermer, but I feel for them a bit in this instance, spending a day doing some genuine work to find out it’s all a sham – though going by both their accounts, I’m not too sure of their ability to spot a joke. At least they got paid for their day (who says skepticism doesn’t pay?).

And you can be sure skeptics wouldn’t engage in this sort of low-level pranking. Oops…very next post on SkepticBlog is from Mark Edward, urging skeptics to engage in “Ambush Skepticism“:

Are your gloves off yet? Now how about moving on from Guerrilla Skepticism to more targeted Ambush Skepticism? We certainly have plenty of whack-jobs out there to choose from. These days, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Here’s some ideas and please don’t take them too seriously, I’m merely suggesting possibilities. If you do any of these performance pieces, please get them on camera.

No shortage of irony over there at the moment…

Editor
  1. Double standards?
    Interesting to watch Michael Shermer twitter about this over the past few days. He’s gone from rage at the producers of the show to encouragement, based on who the punking is aimed at:

    Filmed show today for Showtime called Versus, episode Skeptics v psychics, me and skeptilogist Brian Dunning12:35 PM Jun 4th from Twitterena

    Brian tested psychics on hidden drawings, all failed miserably but during our wrap up dialogue of Brian and I, one of the psychics burst…12:39 PM Jun 4th from Twitterena

    Into the studio pushing a cart with a body bag screaming he had Lee Majors in the bag, because earlier he said Lee would die today, & wanted12:41 PM Jun 4th from Twitterena

    His $50,000 prize from Brian, dreaming and ranting, either a total psychotic break or an Andy Kaufmanesque punking of us so I unzipped bag..12:43 PM Jun 4th from Twitterena

    And found a guy dressed up as the Six Million Dollar Man! Security grabbed him but he tossed them off, so I told him I just googled Lee &12:46 PM Jun 4th from Twitterena

    Found out he’s not dead, so he paused then said Gandhi lied to him! A weird experience I’ll blog about at skepticblog.com12:48 PM Jun 4th from Twitterena

    BTW, Brian Dunning and I are now convinced that we were totally punked by that punk Shirley Ghostman, because he’s a comedian who does such1:07 PM Jun 5th from web

    nonsense in England all the time in order to get attention, so now we’re hoping that Showtime doesn’t give him his 15 minutes in the states1:08 PM Jun 5th from web

    unless Brian is right–he’s even more skeptical than I am–in thinking that maybe the Showtime “Versus” show itself is a punk on us!1:10 PM Jun 5th from web

    Oh, here’s why I think Shirley Ghostman was punking us: http://bit.ly/12zSiF1:24 PM Jun 5th from web

    Remember the weird psychic taping I tweeted about last week? Well, Brian and I now think that we were set up.7:55 AM Jun 11th from web

    I was going to blog about it but wanted to wait until I heard from my Showtime contacts about whether there even is such a show “Versus”7:55 AM Jun 11th from web

    Brian wrote a nice blog about our experiences that day here: http://bit.ly/oNdto7:56 AM Jun 11th from web

    Verdict now in: I was punked by the same people who punked Darryl Hannah: http://bit.ly/mJKXN10:17 AM Jun 11th from web

    But her’s sounds much funnier, with the mini-skirted condor scientist who was fed by condor mothers…my punking was just plain stupid10:18 AM Jun 11th from web

    I’ll blog it up on next week’s Skepticblog, but I do recall the 1st thing I said when the actor broke into the room: “we’re being punked”10:19 AM Jun 11th from web

    If you feel like it, email the phony producer Stephen Cardozo: stephen@littledukeproductions.com or call him: 213/534-368510:20 AM Jun 11th from web

    Let this geek know what you think about his pathetic attempt to punk a couple of skeptics (me and Brian Dunning). We weren’t fooled at all10:21 AM Jun 11th from web

    This real estate guy apparently had a similar experience with Little Duke Productions: http://twitter.com/RussFili…10:21 AM Jun 11th from web

    The “psychic” is Marc Wootton, a Brit who fancies himself another Borat: http://www.shirleyghostman….10:23 AM Jun 11th from web

    “Little Duke Productions” and “Versus” are fake. Here’s the IMBD for the phony show: http://www.imdb.com/title/t…10:25 AM Jun 11th from web

    The punkers are filming tomorrow: http://downtown-filming-map… see: The Untitled MW Project, 1317 Willow St. Los Angeles10:31 AM Jun 11th from web

    If anyone feels like going down there to punk them, go for it. I may head down there myself if I can find the time.10:33 AM Jun 11th from web

    Can someone go to 1317 Willow St., Los Angeles, tomorrow, and post a big sign that says “You’re Being Punked at This Taping!”1:03 PM Jun 11th from web

    BTW, if anyone needs to email me about any of this stuff, I can best be reached at mshermer@skeptic.com1:21 PM Jun 11th from web

    Never mind bothering with the punking people from yesterday. I was just unduly cranked up over wasting an afternoon on this punkerabout 18 hours ago from web

    I think waiting to tweet when one is P.O.’d is sound advice a couple of you gave me last night, so my apologies to you all for rantingabout 18 hours ago from web

    Ah, Brian Dunning just got a note from the producer of the Marc Wootton show saying that the point is to make psychics look like idiots…about 18 hours ago from web

    …and that in fact the producers are skeptics in support of our work. Shirley Ghostman is punking psychics, not skeptics. Good to know…about 18 hours ago from web

    …but now I’m mad at myself for not realizing who was punking whom. Alas, I think I need to apply my own philosophy of using humor here.about 18 hours ago from web

    So, Wootton/Little Duke Productions, if you’re all skeptics making fun of TV psychics…GO FOR IT because if anyone needs punking it’s them!about 18 hours ago from web

    Just posted note to Wootton’s producer apologizing for not getting the point of the show, but asking why, once they knew that Brian and I…about 17 hours ago from web

    …were on to them, if they really are on our side they didn’t tell us yesterday what it was really all about when we asked them point blankabout 17 hours ago from web

    Hack skepticism at its best.

    Kind regards,
    Greg
    ——————————————-
    You monkeys only think you’re running things
    @DailyGrail

    1. Plain as day
      This is evidence that serves to show ‘professional skeptics’ are mostly so full of themselves and brand egos the size of asteroid belts, that when they feel THEY are the target of a joke, their first reaction is outrage.

      But the moment that it dawns on them that the jokers were laughing with them, not at them, they quickly reverse and encourage that their “enemies” (psychics) be submitted to the same immature behavior they complained about in the first place.

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Mobile menu - fractal